2014/03/20 by Audrey T. Mithani, Alexander Vilenkin
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmological constant #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark energy #De Sitter universe #Inflation (cosmology) #Instability #Loop quantum cosmology #Massless particle #Metric expansion of space #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Physics #Quantum #Quantum cosmology #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Scalar field #Theoretical physics #Universe #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2014/05/006
18 pages, 3 figures; v2 reference added
arxiv created 2014/03/20 · openalex publication_date 2014/05/08 · arxiv updated 2015/06/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Oscillating solutions to the effective equations of Loop Quantum Cosmology have been suggested for the role of an `eternal seed', providing a possible starting point for the emergent universe scenario. We investigate the stability of a particular model, sourced by a homogeneous massless scalar field and a negative cosmological constant, with respect to small perturbations and to quantum collapse. We find that the model has perturbatively stable and unstable solutions, with both types of solutions occupying significant regions of the parameter space. All solutions are unstable with respect to collapse by quantum tunneling to zero size. We discuss the possibility that the state resulting from the collapse is non-singular, so it may tunnel back to the oscillating regime. We argue that the universe is then likely to evolve to states of very large size with large particle occupation numbers.